1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to drawing applications, and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for specific geometric creation tools in a sketching/drawing application executing on a multi-touch input device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Manually drawing or sketching perfect lines, circles and concentric rays with a pencil/brush is nearly impossible. Consequently, drawing aid tools such as rulers, compass, and protractors have been invented. The mental model of these drawing tools is deeply ingrained across multiple cultures and children are exposed to them at an early age. However, prior art drawing applications executing on multi-touch devices fail to take advantage of such ingrained mental models and do not provide equivalent tools that can be executed in an easy or intuitive/similar manner to their manual counterparts. Further, none of the prior art multi-touch sketching or drawing applications provide a comprehensive drawing aid system that takes advantage of the multi-touch capability available across multiple mobile devices.
In some cases, specific creation tools (e.g., tools to create a line, circle, arc, rectangle, etc.) have been implemented. However, such tools are static modality tools or commands that are separated from the “sketching” experience and which are not well adapted to the advantage of multi touch input devices. More specifically, existing two-dimensional (2D) sketching applications:
1. Use single input device and modality to enforce drawing aids;
2. Use distinct tools/commands to draw perfect lines/circles/rays; and/or
3. Snap/increments do not interact with line overhang artifacts.
Accordingly, what is needed is a capability to simulate/use various well-known manual drawing tools with similar capabilities on a multi-touch device in an intuitive manner.